


First Night

by threedays



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Good Parent Jim "Chief" Hopper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 09:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21034379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threedays/pseuds/threedays
Summary: There's so much to remember, with a kid in the house.





	First Night

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't abandoned Things Have Happened, I promise! Only I got my foster parent certification and then I had children placed with me, and it's the scariest thing in the world to have a stranger's child entrusted to you after the world has screwed them over so royally, so this is what happened.

There’s so much to remember, with a kid in the house. _Close the door to pee. Throw out expired food so she doesn’t eat it by mistake. Lock up the gun._ He hasn’t had a kid in the house in years, and even then, it was a different house, and a different kid, and he was in over his head but he wasn’t there alone.

There’s a kid in the house and he, and he alone, is solely responsible for keeping her alive. His score in that respect is 0 for 1, which is maybe why his heart’s doing double-time.

“Stupid-ass move, what the hell was I thinking?” He’s talking to the dirty dishes that he’s desperately trying to make clean. Everything in the cabin is dirty and old and past its date, himself included. Everything except the exhausted, terrified child in the bedroom. Dirty, yes. Old, no. She is so, so very young. It weighs on him. It’s one of those things if he thinks too long about it, he wants a goddamn drink.

The truth is, he’s terrified.

He might not know much about kids – even less about girls – even less about _feral_ girls with special _powers_ – but he knows how damn fragile they are. And he’s damn sure – _damn_ sure – he’s not the person you’re supposed to trust with a fragile, broken, feral thing. He can’t even walk through the damn kitchen without slamming a hip against the counter’s edge, swearing, knocking down something metal that clangs and clatters. He’s like the bull in the china shop and this child should be somebody’s baby and instead she’s here with him like nobody cares about her in the world.

She’s left her door open three or so inches and when he’s sure his kitchen noise hasn’t woken her, he angles himself to look inside. She’s asleep sideways across the bed, like she doesn’t know how to use one. He took care to bring clean blankets, begging them off Flo, who shook her head and didn’t ask questions. Everything he owns is too tainted with cigarette smoke for him to ever tuck a child in with it. Which it turns out would have been fine. She’s asleep in her filthy clothes on top of the clean blankets, and there’s no way he’s getting close enough to tuck her in. She can barely tolerate being in the same room with him. He imagines her heart beating fast as a robin’s, her gaze just as wary, ready to take flight at the first sudden move from him.

He’s not sudden, but he’s clumsy, and more than once this evening, he thought she’d come out of her skin, she was so startled by him. Clearly, she hasn’t shared space with anyone in a while. What a stupid thought. Of course she hasn’t. She’s lived in the forest for weeks, like some mythical wolf child. He longs for a fellow adult, a co-conspirator to help him keep this strong, fragile contradiction of a child safe. Joyce. Diane. Someone smarter and more parental.

But he can’t tell any of them. He can’t tell anyone. He’ll be putting her in danger if he does.

He’s turning away when she shifts in her sleep, flinging an arm out in front of her, brows knitting together. Her eyes remain closed, but the corners of her mouth turn down. She jerks and twitches. He recognizes the signs of a nightmare right before a whole bunch of new signs show up, ones he didn’t go through with Sara. The lights in the cabin dim. The window panes rattle.

El bolts awake, half off the bed before her eyes are even open, hands raised toward Hopper in the doorway. He feels a steady pressure rooting him to the spot, just for a moment, while her shoulders heave with terrified breaths. He doesn’t like being held to the spot, but even if he could move, he wouldn’t. He waits, watching the little girl work out that there’s a bed and a room and most of a door between them, and he’s not advancing toward her, and she more or less knows who he is.

The pressure lifts, but he doesn’t budge.

“Where’s –”

Her voice is high and small and she stops herself. She looks around as though only now realizing it’s just the two of them.

“He’s not here,” Hop tells her gently. “He’s not getting anywhere near you again, okay?”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

Her gaze, even when she’s not using her powers, roots him to the spot. “Why … do you help?”

“Why am I helping you?”

She swallows and nods, curls bobbing. He’s pretty sure he can still see twigs and moss tangled up in her growing locks. He’s not going to broach the subject of a shower any time soon. He just likes it that her hair’s growing in.

“Because you deserve to be helped,” Hop says. “How ‘bout I make us a midnight snack?”

She blinks, giant eyes wounded and hopeful. “Eggos?”

“Yeah, kid. Eggos.” He jerks his head toward the kitchen. “I’m gonna go warm ‘em up, okay? You come on in when you’re ready.”

He’s forgotten the essentials – he’s bought cereal but no milk, bread with no butter. He’s rusty and it’s not like he was ever the most organized parent anyway. That was always Diane. But he remembered the Eggos, and the syrup, and a can of whipped cream. By the time El makes her way into the kitchen, blanket draped around her shoulders, Hopper has stacked two plates high with toasted waffles adorned with sweet stuff.

“Triple decker,” he says proudly. He hasn’t forgotten _everything_ about being a dad.

She stares at him, into him, through him for the longest moment. Then all at once, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud right when you thought it was going to storm, she smiles.


End file.
